MAY 29, 1952

NEW YORK, Wednesday—The Chicago Tribune article which I have been analyzing point by point—relating to
the Human Rights Commission's efforts to write two covenants—did say that Senator
Bricker did not accuse the United States delegation of voting for the provision on
euthanasia, but it does not mention the fact that no petition can come up for a vote.

Senator Bricker maintained that this proposal is "consistent with the Human Rights
Covenant's basic legal philosophy. If the right to life is treated as a right granted
by the state, it is not illogical to authorize the so-called right to death."

He and the Rev. Russell J. Clinchy, who is at present not acting as a minister but
has taken a position on the staff of the Foundation for Economic Education, seem to
have completely missed the point.

Fundamental human rights, according to our view, are inalienable because all human
beings have something in them of the Divine and, therefore, the Divine Power gives
them certain inalienable human rights. But a legal treaty must deal with the rights
of states and the rights of the individual as regards the state and other individuals.
This treaty is to safeguard those rights in human society.

No one knows exactly, as yet, what the wording in the eventual treaties will be. They
have not yet been finally drafted by the commission. And even after they have been
drafted they must pass through the hands of the Economic and Social Council and eventually
through Committee 3 of the General Assembly before being voted on by the entire General
Assembly. So, there are a good many steps to be gone through before you and I can
look on these documents as being definitely and finally worded.

The Soviet Constitution, which Senator Bricker suggests was influential in this document,
has no more to do with it than our own Constitution and Bill of Rights. In fact, it
has often been stated that our Constitution and Bill of Rights were more nearly followed
in certain instances than any other document.

It is true that the Soviet Constitution is based on different conceptions from ours,
but so is the Islamic law, or the Hindu religion, and yet perhaps more people live
according to these laws and religions than live with the belief in the Christian religion.

In drawing up the Human Rights Covenant we should attempt to state the rights of individuals
in such terms as to be acceptable to all peoples and all religions. We are not trying
to subject other people to our particular manner of approaching a subject; we are
trying to find common ground which, in the words that we know so well, will actually
bring to the people of the world an opportunity for life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness.

Senator Bricker's statement that the State Department knows "the Russian principle
must be substituted for the American principle if the Department is to get the human
rights proposals approved by 'communist, socialist, fascist and feudal majority' in the U.N." is utterly false.
It has been accepted from the beginning that we would try primarily as a delegation
to have accepted what we felt our own Senate could accept but to make every effort
at the same time to meet the views of others where they did not conflict with what
we felt was possible for us to accept.

Frankly, I never expected, and I surmise the Department of State never expected, that
the Soviets could accept any document on human rights.

E. R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1952, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR
IN PART PROHIBITED.)